Start your engines!

So we are finally back in Munich, but I wanted to give a re-cap of the last day in Austria.

Saturday afternoon we prepared the car for the endurance race. Checked all fasteners, fluids, etc. Everything looked to be great, so shortly after lunch we pushed the car up to the track. Dustin nestled into the cockpit and was strapped down for the ride. Right out of the gate he set some very fast lap times. Its the Goodyear tires! They seem to come up to temperature faster than the competing tires. Anyway a few laps into the endurance race the car came to a halt. We ran into more drive-train problems. A half shaft separated from its housing and the wheel would no longer turn. For those who don't know..... in these competitions once the endurance race starts we are NOT allowed to work on our cars if they break. So what that meant for us is we were done with that portion of the competition. Another bad thing that comes with not finishing endurance is we missed out on crucial points. No worries though about 60% of the competition field usually does not finish the grueling endurance event.

After pushing the car into the pits we watched the rest of the races and packed up our box van. After packing we cleaned up for the awards ceremony. This was a treat! The awards ceremony in the European competitions are treated with so much respect. There was music, light shows, beer, and a dinner! We placed 15th among the competition. Around 11pm the awards wrapped up and we headed to the campsite where the promoters of the event prepared an after party for us. There was portable stage trailed in which had a light-show, DJ, and more beer. These Germans love their beer haha.

The following morning we piled into the vans and headed back to Munich, and thats where I sit now writing this! So I'm going to get some sleep : )

Good night!

Wired on Red-Bull

So most of you know we are currently competing in Austria at the newly finished "Red Bull Ring". Check out the link in my post below. Anyway it is a beautiful facility, and the best part is we get FREEEEEEE Red Bull the entire week. Back in the states this cost's nearly $3.00 per can... So as you'd imagine we are taking our full dose of the free caffeine.  Below is a picture of our car with a free case!

The experience in Austria has been awesome so far, and with only 24 hours left here I don’t think my thoughts will change.  We have completed all the static events and are most of the dynamics event.  All results for the statics have been posted but aren’t official:

Cost – 6^th place

Marketing Presentation – 15^th place

Design – 18^th place

We are currently waiting to run the endurance event. We ran well in autocross and will head to the track immediately after lunch today. This would be ~7am Ohio time. No official results have been posted for Acceleration, Skid Pad,  or Autocross.

Lastly, I wanted to give you a “behind the scenes” tour of what we have experienced so far. We have been camping the past 4 nights with our German Friends. (~30 Germans and 10 Americans. They have a large tent and we have been cooking all our meals there. AMAZING food. Barbecue, Beef Stroganoff, Spatzles, and so much more. They have amazing beer from a brewery called Augustiner… The myths are true, German beer is 10 times better than ours. The Picture below isn't the greatest, but it is beef stroganoff, homemade bread, and a cold brew!

Inside the racing facilty we have been carrying our flag around proudly alongside our American friends from RIT. See the picture below. We have a great view of the Alps and the engines really scream in this valley. As I said above all the red bull is free.  That’s about all I’ve got… RACING, REDBULL, & CAMPING. What more could a guy ask for?

Love

Benny!

Journey through Germany

Hey Yall!

Not too much time to update, but I'll type till my fingers are numb....

Yesterday departed early morning for the Austria competition. Approx 8:30am. The drive was really amazing. I'll put a picture below, but it won't describe the beauty of the mountains. About 5 hours later we arrived at Red Bull Ring.

We quickly unloaded our box truck and began setting up our paddock and camp.  We were the second team to attempt tech judging, but didn't have enough time to finish last night... So we packed up the paddock and headed out to the campsites for fesitivies.

Today we woke up at 6:45. (Not too pleasant...) Anyway by 8:00am they began tech again. At 8:30 Maddy and I headed to presentation event. It went well, but one thing is for sure...The German's/Austrian's expect nothing but your A-game!


At 11:30 we prepared the car for the cost event. Surprisingly we have one of the less expensive car's here. The German's are known for their crafty composite work, which is very pricey.

Lastly, at 2:30pm we headed to one of the most challenging events. Design. We seemed to hold our own definding our design, but the results have not been posted yet for any of the events.

All-in-All it has been a great two days so far. Fast Paced, but fun. We look forward to starting the engines tomorrow and heading onto the track. Logan, Kevin, and Dustin will be suiting up for us and driving: Acceleration, Skid-Pad, and Autocross. If I can ill post some results....

Anyway getting ready to head out to the campsite for another fun night.


Cheers! or Prost in German.

Practice...Practice...Practice!

Until the late hours of the evening we laid rubber down on the Audi test track with our friends from TU Fast Racing. Our car is proving to be a threat as we continue to record competitive lap times. We feel very lucky to have the opportunity to test before the competitions. Racing is in the forecast for tomorrow. Below see a picture of the ZR-11 as we finished our final day of testing. 

After testing we went to a really authentic Italian restaurant. I had Pesto and a glass of Lambrusco, two of my favorites. After dinner we were all able to get a full nights rest. It felt amazing. Today is a pretty relaxed day since we are only cleaning and packing the car for our first competition in Speilberg, Austria.

Well anyway I’m going to continue practicing our marketing presentation for the remainder of the day. Tomorrow morning at 8am we hit the winding roads to Austria.  I’ll start posting pictures of Munich and the Alps on Facebook soon.

The City Scene

T-minus 3 days. Yesterday our team worked hard to get the ZR-11 back on its feet and running. The process of grooving the new axles took longer than expected, but we are all happy this failure occurred before competition.

Around 8pm we all took a break from the shop and headed to the finest part of Munich for dinner. This part of the city was beautiful, and the architecture was amazing. (Below see a picture on the square in Munich with our German Friends)

After dinner we continued to work on the racecar late into the night. Around 4:00AM we buttoned everything up and finally headed to bed. Three hours later we rose to test the ZR-11. As expected, the closer we get to competition the more on edge we all are, but the clock is ticking! Enough for today...

Take care!

--Benny!

Opa!

Well the past 24hours certainly have been interesting.  Shortly after I updated my blog yesterday we ran into a pretty large failure with the car. Here’s a watered down version of what happened:

“The team was getting ready to practice Skid-Pad, an event at competition Right as they launched the car it made a “popppp” sound. Shortly after that we noticed the left rear axle had failed. To this point we are still unsure what exactly caused the failure.  Luckily we have packed spare axles, but unfortunately we will have to finish machining it before it can be used on the racecar. “

Anyway… after assessing the problem the team packed up shop around 9pm and headed to a local restaurant, hence the title Opa! If you haven’t figured it out yet, it was a Greek restaurant. The food was very good, and they gave us free shots of ouzo. surprise...surprise.

By the time our waiter divvied our checks its was already 11:30pm. Yawn! But Germany the night had just begun.  So we sat at a dinner table for 15 minutes trying to understand the “game plan” our German friends were scheming.  This has been the hardest transition thus far. Part way through a conversation our friends well change their language and we are immediately lost. Anyway before I get too far off topic you can imagine what we did next… headed back to the university for a long night of board games: Monopoly, scrabble, Catch Phrase, ect… Cough. Cough. Cough.

 Thats all for now!

--Benny!

Jet laggin!

Guten Morgen!

Actually it is afternoon here, but I'm guessing it is about 8am in the States. Our team rose early this morning to finish assembling the car and head to the private Audi test track. (Located near the Munich Airport). We ran into a few minor problems, but the car seems to be running pretty sound. This is surprising since we haven't seen the car since early June. 

At lunch time Maddy headed back to the University to practice our marketing presentation. So here I sit writing this blog and the title of it says it all.... Tired! We are all feeling the Jet lag, but we know this testing time is crucial.

The weather has been pretty crappy. Ran mostly, with bits and pieces of sun. Our team isn't complaining though. Ran testing is very important. The countdown has begun. T-minus 4 days until we head to Austria for the first competition. We have plans to relax this evening, and drink some Augustiner beer. Augustiner is a famous  brewery in Munich. Very tasty!

Anyway I must go now. Practice. Practice. Practice!

Love BennY

On Your Mark..... Get Set... GO!

Hey Everyone!

First off, we made it to Germany safely. One word so far, amazing. We've only been here about an hour and already drove on the Autobahn.... 125MPH. (Sorry mom)

The flight was not too bad and our German friends from The University of Munich were waiting for us at the terminal. Four of my teamates headed northwest to LUK, Buhl to pick up our rental truck and racecar. The rest of us are hanging out on Munich's campus for the remainder of the day. 

Another cool perk of being in Germany is they sell beer on campus. Hmmm...to think the German Engineers are some of the brightest in the world? You can connect the dots....

Anyway thats all for now. Talk soon.

--Love Benny